Headsets for communication are becoming increasingly used for voice communication and are used in all environments. Thus, the issue of reducing noise in the transmitted voice signal becomes increasingly relevant. Some headsets provide a boom for picking up acoustic sound, the boom may be a long boom for picking up sound directly at the user's mouth, others may have a short boom, or the boom may have an adjustable length. For all headsets, the issue of reducing noise while not reducing the signal quality is a challenge.
Especially for professional use, headsets having a boom with acoustic pickup near the source of the acoustic signal, such as near a user's mouth, have been provided. Typically, such microphones have a directional pattern tailored to receive an acoustic signal at a predetermined distance and under a well-defined angle. However, any mis-positioning of the boom with relation to the acoustic source will due to the directionality of the microphone typically lead to a reduced performance of the microphone, and thereby a reduced quality of the signal provided from the headset.
To ensure that the microphone is not mis-positioned by a user when the user is wearing the headset, the headset may be integrated with a cup provided to align a user's chin to the microphone. However, such as a cup is bulky and impractical and not comfortable for a user to wear for an extended period of time.
It is also known to lower the noise cancelling features of a microphone to allow for a better flexibility regarding the positioning of the microphones. However, this trade-off results in permanently reduced performance of the microphones, when in a noisy environment, and regardless of whether the microphone is mis-positioned or not.
Furthermore, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,561,700 and 7,346,176, a system and a method have been suggested to auto-adjust a noise cancelling microphone if the microphone is mis-positioned. In U.S. Pat. No. 7,561,700, it is determined whether the microphone is positioned incorrectly, and if this is the case, a polar response pattern of the microphone is adjusted and for example switched from a response, such as a figure-eight response, having noise cancelling features to an omnidirectional microphone. It is furthermore suggested to switch the directional response of a microphone between different directional response states, e.g. from a figure-eight response, to a hyper cardioid, cardioid and an omnidirectional response to provide an improved pick-up of the acoustic source depending on the severity of the mis-positioning.
However, also in these documents, the noise cancelling features are traded off to increase the pick-up sensitivity when the microphone is mis-positioned.
There is thus a need to provide a microphone which is capable of retaining noise cancelling features irrespective of a misplacement of the microphone in relation to an acoustic signal.